


As Time Goes By

by MotherMaple



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Blink-and-you'll-miss-it-Cheronica, F/M, Fluff, Pining, School Dances, Valentine's Day, Veronica: Meddling, bughead through the years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherMaple/pseuds/MotherMaple
Summary: "She wasn’t his Valentine, but she was just about the only person that mattered to him in all of Riverdale Elementary."Valentine's Day through the years <3In which the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 42
Kudos: 157
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	As Time Goes By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jandjsalmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jandjsalmon/gifts).



In elementary school, it happened every year without fail. A week before the dreaded day, every teacher would send home a reminder: _ “If you plan to send Valentines with your child on February 14th, please ensure that there is one for each of his or her classmates. Below is a class list.” _

Every. Year.

And every year, without fail, there would be a few dozen cheap cardboard cutouts with cheesy slogans and generic signatures dumped on his desk - plus one personalized, hand-made card, signed  _ Love from Betty, xoxo _ , in sparkly blue ink. 

He never reciprocated because his mother didn’t have cash to spare on anything as unnecessary as cards for people he didn’t even like. She did, however, always have a dollar for him to stop at the corner bodega and pick up a bar of Betty’s favourite chocolate on the way to school. He’d slip it into her backpack when no one was looking, and she’d find it at recess and blush and smile. Then she’d catch him staring, and he’d blush a little bit too, and jerk his head in acknowledgement of her silent thank you. 

She wasn’t his Valentine, but she was just about the only person that mattered to him in all of Riverdale Elementary. 

(Archie didn’t count. Not on Valentine’s day.)

  
  


Come middle school, the teachers apparently trusted the kids enough not to be assholes about it, and stopped requiring each student to feign affection for every other person in the class. 

The trust was misplaced, and certain people - notably Cheryl and Reggie - pointedly passed his desk with supercilious sneers as they handed out cards and candy to the kids that mattered. 

He couldn’t have cared less. 

He still hid chocolate for Betty - in her locker now - and she still had a card for him and every other kid in the class, whether they were her friend or not. Betty would never leave anyone out. 

In seventh grade, the chattering of excitement about cards and classroom parties gave way to a sense of palpable anticipation regarding a very different ritual - their first-ever school dance. 

More of a sock hop, really, in the school gym at lunchtime, with one of the teachers graciously curating a heavily censored playlist and plugging his phone into the sound system, and every other teacher prowling the perimeter of the room scowling at anyone who looked like they were having too much fun. 

There would be no funny business. 

Because it was during school hours, he really had no choice but to go, but there was a tray of sugary pink cookies, some cupcakes, and a tower of juice boxes on a table at the back of the room, so it could have been worse. 

No one really dressed up, although most of the girls seemed to stick with the theme of the day, wearing red or pink, and slicking on shiny lipgloss and unnerving amounts of some kind of perfume - something peachy, or maybe jasmine. 

Either way, the whole gym reeked of it. 

(It clashed horribly with the Axe that the boys were doused in.)

Most of the songs were top 40 - poppy and danceable - and everyone stood around in awkward groups moving self-consciously to the beat. Every once in a while, a slow song would come on and the whole class would make a beeline for the edges of the gym - the boys to one side and the girls, in giggling clusters, to the other. Then someone - usually, notably, Cheryl or Reggie - would breach the void and invite someone onto the floor where they’d hold each other at arm’s length and revolve slowly in a circle. 

He wondered if it felt as weird as it looked. 

When the last song was announced, desperation made them bold and nearly a dozen boys crossed the gym in search of partners. Archie, his red hair nearly a head above almost all the other kids, stood out like a flame as he shyly joined the pack. Instinctively, and entirely against his own will, Jughead sought Betty out in the gaggle of girls and saw her nervously straighten her collar and look determinedly away from Archie. 

He’d seen this coming for a while. 

It was like watching a train wreck - Betty’s forced nonchalance, her stiff posture, her refusal to watch Archie approach lest she appear too eager - and then the brief but unmistakable heartbreak on her face when he held out his hand to the girl standing next to her. 

A better man would have invited her on to the floor himself, tried to make up for the callousness of the one she really wanted. 

But he wasn’t a man yet and asking a girl to dance seemed to hold a lot more weight in those days. So he stayed at his post, guarding the cookies jealously, and hated Archie, just a little bit, for the first time in his life. 

It was a harbinger of things to come for the next few years. Not just dances, but life in general. Betty silently pining for Archie, and Archie stumbling almost blindly through dates and dances with every other girl in the class, and even a few from other schools. How he didn’t notice that Betty was hopelessly in love with him was a mystery to Jughead, but it was obvious to everyone else. 

It got harder and harder to watch. Archie was his brother but they were never as close as Jughead and Betty were. They were as inseparable and prone to getting into trouble as Harry and Hermione, and they relied on each other almost as much. So it pained him to see her getting her heart broken again and again - and more and more he wanted to be the one to fix it.

It all came to a head in September of sophomore year. Gone were the days of lunch-time sock hops, and with ninth grade behind them, they were all old hat at the rituals and expectations of proper dances. There would be dates, not just dance partners, a real DJ, dresses and suits, decorations - the whole nine yards. Going stag was only tolerated if you were on the football team or otherwise high-ranking in the social hierarchy, and someone like Jughead showing up alone would lead to ridicule for the rest of his God-given days. 

Girls had some leeway, going in groups and even dancing together if no one asked them up for the slow songs. (Really, they had it all figured out at 16. They didn’t need boys to have fun and no amount of ridicule would prevent them from getting out there. The fragile young men could learn something from them.)

Of course, Jughead shouldn’t have been privy to any of that knowledge because there was absolutely no way he should have been at the back-to-school-dance, but apparently, someone needed to photograph it for the yearbook, and he was the only one on the committee not otherwise engaged for the evening. 

In other words, he was the only one without a date. The loser with the camera, lurking alone in the shadows. 

Yay. 

It wasn’t all bad, though. Betty was there, too, looking like a graceful lily in a bouquet of showy hothouse flowers - pale blonde curls, a floaty white dress with a low, old-fashioned neck that showed off her shoulders, even a pair of short crocheted gloves that reminded him of Grace Kelly. Most of the other girls wore bold colours with daring silhouettes and alluring makeup. The aesthetic was appealing enough, he could admit, but he liked that Betty still looked like herself. It was a different kind of confidence and he didn’t think she ever realized how attractive it was.

He helped her with a few last-minute details - the rest of the dance committee was already enjoying the fruits of their labour - and snapped a shot of her behind the snack table, grinning maniacally like Donna Reed offering him a plate of cookies. He both hated and loved that she was one of the only people who could make him laugh out loud.

Archie, newly-minted member of the JV football team, was also there. Someone had let him out of the house in a red velvet jacket, and he hovered around the punchbowl with the rest of the team. Dateless so as not to deprive any of the solo cheerleaders of his company, he would still inevitably end the night entangled with some lucky girl in the parking lot. 

Gone were the days of the locked elbows and stiff circles. Slow dances had taken on a decidedly suggestive posture that most of the chaperones turned a blind eye to - provided hands didn’t wander - and it made Jughead almost uncomfortable to think about trying it out. He didn’t want to be that close to anyone, ever. 

Betty, it seemed, didn’t either. She manned the refreshment stand during those songs, sweetly relieving whoever was supposed to be on duty so that they could dance, swaying on the spot while she served drinks and smiling kindly at everyone. 

God, she was just so  _ nice _ . 

As the night drew closer and closer to an end, Jughead gave up on trying to take clear pictures in the dim light and went to get the camera bag he’d stashed under the snack table. Betty was there again, having a hushed conversation with the new girl, Veronica, who seemed to have decided that Betty was her long-lost soulmate. 

He tried not to eavesdrop, but it was easy enough to see what they were discussing. Their furtive glances and muted gestures pointed at one person, and one person alone. 

Finally, Veronica whispered something in Betty’s ear and Betty nodded, looking scared but determined. 

Jughead’s stomach sank, and he abandoned his plans to leave early. The train wreck from nearly three years before flashed through his mind and he knew as surely as he knew his own name exactly what was going to happen. 

He melted into the shadows at the edge of the gym, and waited. 

Betty danced a few songs with her girlfriends, sang along loudly to the latest girl-power anthem with her arm around Veronica’s waist, and was altogether so happy and delightful that Jughead would have enjoyed just watching her if he didn’t know what was coming. 

Sooner than he wanted, the last dance was called and he saw Betty stiffen up, just as she had all those years ago, and look around for Archie. 

Jughead spotted him before Betty did, pushing the edge of what the chaperones would accept, wrapped around Ginger Lopez.

Turning back towards Betty, he locked eyes with a murderous-looking Veronica, her hands balled into tiny fists and everything about her suggesting that  _ neither _ ginger’s body would ever be found. 

He might have been tempted to let  _ that _ scene unfold, but Veronica was silhouetted in the gym door, and so he clearly saw Betty running out into the entry. He jerked his head in her direction and Veronica followed his gaze, turning on her dangerous-looking heel and disappearing after her distraught friend. 

  
  
  


He found them both an hour later when he skulked into Pop’s for his usual Friday all-nighter, laptop bag in hand and enough money in his pocket to keep him in fries and coffee until dawn. 

He nodded to Veronica as he came in the door and she whispered something to Betty, who turned around and smiled at him. 

“Juggie!” she said, one of the few people who ever seemed happy to see him. “Want to join us?”

He grinned and sauntered towards them with an affected waggle of his head that always made Betty giggle. “Yes, but only if you’re treating.”

Veronica rolled her eyes and pointedly shifted on her bench seat, fluffing her skirt and making it amply clear that there was no room next to her. “Naturally, Kerouac,” she huffed. “There’s plenty of room on my tab for your hollow leg.”

He’d mostly been joking, but he wasn’t about to turn down free food. “Thanks,” he said, sliding in next to Betty and stealing a sip of her milkshake. “What brings you ladies here?”

“Dance post-mortem,” Betty quipped, winking at him with slightly red eyes. “Apparently it’s a ritual I’ve been missing out on by hanging out with guys all the time.”

“And I get to witness the inaugural event?” he drawled. “Lucky me.”

“I don’t tolerate voyeurs,” Veronica said haughtily. “You may  _ partake _ . We were discussing your lothario of a friend.”

Well, that was a level of bluntness he hadn’t anticipated. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Betty and see her reaction. “Really,” he said neutrally. 

With a determined jut of her chin, Veronica launched into a tirade that would surely set Archie’s ears aflame, unloading some home truths that even Jughead hadn’t known about. 

“Wait, wait, wait. He  _ knew? _ ”

“Of course he knew, that ginger Judas. I told him to save the last dance for Betty!”

Oh, that was so much worse than Jughead had imagined, and he found himself hating Archie, just a little bit, again.

  
  


The assistant manager, Lydia, who many people claimed was psychic, deposited his usual order on the table unbidden and slid a plate of chilli fries between the girls. “For medicinal purposes,” she said shortly. “I won’t tell your mother, Cooper.”

Betty smiled wanly and thanked her. 

Jughead picked up his burger gratefully, toasted Veronica with it, and hummed around the first satisfying bite. 

The world simply wouldn’t be the same without Pop.

Veronica watched him like he was an interesting specimen she’d happened across in the Bronx Zoo. “Shall we leave you two alone?” she asked demurely, her voice dripping with innuendo.

“You’re good,” he shot back. “Not all of us mind voyeurs.”

Next to him, Betty snorted indelicately.

“Indeed.” Veronica rolled her eyes expressively at Betty and neatly speared a french fry on the end of her fork. “As I was saying, Bettykins, that orange viper has stepped in it for the last time. He promised you, via yours truly, to save you a dance, and he didn’t. It’s unacceptable.”

“I’m with Miss Manhattan.”

“If I thought you understood the true provenance of that reference, I’d be flattered. But, since I doubt you do, I’ll settle for gratified and slightly surprised that you see my point.”

He did, in fact, know the true provenance of the reference, but since he was actually making a half-hearted dig at her status in high society, he decided not to press his luck. 

Betty, only slightly cheered by their byplay, sighed. “I never even told him I like him, though. Maybe if he knew …”

“Should it matter?” Jughead asked. Romance was mostly a mystery to him, but he figured respect was fairly universal. “I mean, he made you a promise and he broke it to dance with another girl. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in his ability to be a good boyfriend.”

“Exactly,” Veronica said triumphantly. “From what I hear, he’s been taking you for granted for years. I see no reason to think that would change if you told him about your  _ sentiments du coeur.” _

Betty slumped in her seat, defeated. Jughead suspected that she’d known for a while that Archie only saw her as a friend, and his callous performance that evening had extinguished any lingering hope she might have had. 

“I’m sorry, Betts.” 

She shrugged, and smiled sadly. “Yeah, me too.” 

They let her sit in silence for a few moments, staring out the window at the rain, and then Veronica abruptly changed the subject.    
  


“Now tell me. That fabulous bombshell in heels - does she like girls?”

.

.

.

  
  


And so autumn went, with Veronica barging into his cozy friendship with Betty, and Archie growing further away from them as he ‘found himself’ first in sports and then in music. By homecoming, it almost felt like she’d always been there and he found himself - grudgingly, and  _ only _ to himself - admitting that he kind of enjoyed her company. She clearly adored Betty, so they had that, at least, in common. 

When the dance came around, all signs pointed to Betty having moved on from a certain red-head who definitely didn’t deserve her. The obvious pining, at least, had stopped, and she’d been on a few dates with some harmless and friendly classmates. Jughead tried to ignore the jealous twinge in his gut when  _ that _ started, but he’d reached the point where he had to accept that he was head over tail feathers in love with Betty.

It’s not like he could help it. She was inherently loveable. 

He knew she was head of the dance committee, and he also knew that he wasn’t ready to invite her to be his date, so he did something infinitely more damaging to his loner soul - he volunteered to be on the homecoming committee, too. 

Maybe, just maybe, he’d work up the courage to ask her for one dance, if she had time. 

As it happened, neither of them had time because, with hundreds of students and almost as many alumni present, they were both run off their feet. Camouflaged by the hyper-activity and pure adrenaline pumping through the gym, he did catch her hand every time they passed each other, running in opposite directions, and twirled her around before sending her on her way. 

His heart leapt at the way she laughed each time, her whole face lighting up. He didn’t know what she’d chalk it up to, his uncharacteristic joviality, but  _ he _ knew exactly what it was. For the first time ever, Betty was truly happy at a dance, not looking over her shoulder for Archie and hoping against hope that he might look for her, too. 

He liked seeing her happy. 

  
  


Her dance post-mortem with Veronica took the form of a sleepover that time, so he naturally was not allowed to ‘partake’ but he was quite certain that it wouldn’t involve Veronica trying to cheer Betty up - rather it was quite likely to be Veronica waxing poetic about Cheryl’s (admittedly incredible) gown and the custom corsage with gold-dipped red roses she’d ordered especially for Veronica. He was okay with missing that. 

Evidently there was more to it than that, because Veronica cornered him at his locker between second and third period on Monday and ruthlessly demanded to know if he had feelings for Betty. 

“Fine thanks, Ron. How are you?”

Boy, if looks could kill.

“Why do you want to know?”

She peered at him, eyes narrowed and brow ever-so-slightly creased, and then seemed to come to some deep, important conclusion. “If your burger-loving heart harbours any sort of romantic affection for my dear B, I’m prepared to help you woo her and win her hand.”

“Why?”

“Just a thought I had.” 

Uh-huh.

“Did Betty say something to you?” He wasn’t embarrassed, per se, by his behaviour at the dance, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about it being dissected by Veronica of all people. “Does she think I like her?”

God those eyebrows were infuriating. 

“Wait, does  _ she _ like  _ me _ ?”

Hanging out with Cheryl hadn’t completely frozen Veronica’s heart, apparently, because she looked around and took a covert step closer. “I don’t think so, not yet. But it’s there. There’s a spark and I think you should fan it.”

A cold, swooping sensation flooded his stomach then, and for a second he couldn’t feel his legs. Was this what having a heart attack felt like? “A spark?” The warning bell rang and he grabbed his books and slammed his locker shut. “What do you mean?” He wasn’t about to indulge Veronica in whatever she was scheming about, but he was only human. His curiosity was natural.

Veronica curled her hand around his bicep and set off towards the science wing. “Women’s intuition, mostly. She told me about your little impromptu pirouettes at the dance and she was positively effervescent about it. There’s no rush, she deserves better than a rebound with her boy bestie, but think about it! Toodles!”

She was spending way too much time with Cheryl.

He thought about it. He thought about it a lot, and finally admitted to himself that as much as he loved Betty, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk his friendship with her over Veronica Lodge’s intuition.

(Eerily accurate though it usually was.)

Eventually, though, still knee-deep in his crush, he decided to test the waters, just a little bit.

On the first day of school after Christmas break, furious screaming in the next trailer woke him at the crack of dawn, and the subsequent pandemonium that ensued made it amply clear that he wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon. So, off-brand Pop-Tart in hand, he trudged through the snow that seemed to get more picturesque the further north he travelled, until he found himself at Riverdale’s lone coffee shop where he ordered a double-almond-milk-lavender-latte-extra-whip and managed not to feel like a pretentious douche while he did so.

It was a moment of growth. 

(Just to make sure no one thought it was for him, he also ordered a large dark roast, black, and took a hearty gulp of it as soon as he’d finished paying. Growth is a journey of a thousand tiny steps.)

The Coopers, practically perfect in every way, rose early each morning, completed some kind of physical activity, washed and dressed for the day, and sat down for a cooked breakfast at precisely seven o’clock, rain or shine. Jughead, who greatly valued his life and was therefore not about to interrupt the routine for anything short of a polar bear attack, leaned against the stone wall and waited until Betty opened the front door at exactly seven-thirty-two.

“Juggie!” She came down the walk and wrapped him in a warm hug, blinking up at him with a surprised smile. “What are you doing here so early?”

He shrugged and offered her the latte somewhat sheepishly. “First day back, thought you might need an extra jolt.”

“Lavender,” she sighed, inhaling some of the steam that escaped from the lid. “Caffeine and chill. Thanks, Jug.”

She had an absent smile and an unusual brightness on her cheeks the whole way to school. He probably did, too.

  
  
  
  


A few days later, she skipped history class for some committee meeting or another, and he took meticulous, colour coded notes that were not only complete but legible, and slipped them to her at lunch to general astonishment. 

“Is that what your handwriting looks like?” Archie asked, bug-eyed. 

Kevin was equally agog: “You own  _ highlighters? _ ” 

Betty, however, filed them neatly into her binder and promised to return them after she had a chance to photocopy them. Then, she reached over and squeezed his hand and mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ while the others continued to debate whether they’d ever actually seen Jughead take notes before. 

He missed the feeling of her hand for the rest of the day. 

  
  
  


A few days after that, she wore her hair down in rare loose curls, and he spent the entirety of English class absent-mindedly staring at the back of her head, imagining running his fingers through it.

(This was getting embarrassing.) 

Later, holed up in the Blue and Gold office, he swallowed the butterflies that were trying to choke him and mentioned, as casually as he could, that he liked her hair. 

She wore it down again the next day and he spent the morning in such a daze - did she wear it down again for  _ him _ ? - that he turned in a literature paper to his chemistry teacher.

And so it went. A few days into the last week of January, she wore a sweater that was a little too short with jeans that were a little too high (or so it seemed. The cut of both items of clothing and their subsequent pairing was probably entirely intentional but that wasn’t something he pretended to understand.) and he could see a sliver of bare skin around her waist every time she raised her arms. 

Which was something she did with a lot more frequency than he’d previously realized.

(If he didn’t get a handle on this, he was going to flunk out of sophomore year.)

He’d been so distracted with his growing attraction to Betty - even he had to admit that his affection was morphing into something much more … intimate, maybe even adult - that he didn’t notice the year creeping away until that very afternoon when he saw Betty, with her sweater up around her ribs, hanging a poster advertising the Valentine’s Day dance to be held three weeks hence in the school gym. 

A better writer’s blood wouldn’t have run cold, but his did. 

Did he want to go to the dance? Absolutely not. 

Did he want to go with Betty? Maybe.

Did he want Betty to go with someone else? Did it make him a bad friend if he said no?

One chemistry class later, wherein he missed some important notes on balancing equations, filled the entire margin of one page with sloppy three-dimensional boxes, and ate half a box of off-brand Oreos under his desk, he ultimately decided that he wasn’t a bad friend, he was just a lousy suitor. 

The waters had been tested and he was starting to think that Veronica might have been right. Betty wasn’t in love with him, not like she had been with Archie, but he’d definitely caught her looking at him more than once, and she tended to blush when he teased her or, conversely but with equal affection, did something nice for her. The dance seemed like the logical occasion to put himself out there. 

Terrifying thought. 

Left to his own devices, he would have put off the fateful decision indefinitely, but that simply wasn’t an option now that he was a friend of Veronica Lodge. 

The girl was like a ferret for juicy information and he wasn’t as subtle as he liked to think he was. As soon as she was absolutely sure of his little secret, which happened with humiliating efficiency, the decision was totally out of his hands. 

Rock you like a hurricane didn’t even begin to cover it. 

On the last Tuesday in January, while Betty was holed up with the student body president to go over the final budget for dance, Veronica informed him with pointed emphasis that Betty was officially over Archie. 

Old news. Even he knew that.

Three days later, the Honour Society’s annual Heart-O-Gram fundraiser set up shop in the foyer and Veronica took the liberty of dragging him to the sickeningly cute cardboard booth and slapping a crisp twenty-dollar bill on the table on his behalf, while Cheryl of all people kept an eagle eye out for any sign of Betty. 

With his ears as pink as the roses he was apparently buying, he directed the card to English class - one of the few places where he’d actually get to see her get them. After years of watching her disappointment at not receiving flowers, he wanted to finally be there when she did. 

He didn’t sign it.

On the third, Veronica started talking about corsages and matching ties, and  _ he _ started to get a little bit dizzy. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Veronica was going to see this through to the finish, and on the fifth of February, he dug in his heels. 

He’d seen the memes about the best friend/sibling/parent of the main character proposing on their behalf and he wasn’t about to star in one. 

“With all due gratitude, this needs to stop,” he muttered, slicing open a poor, harmless frog while Veronica took notes. Betty was his usual lab partner, but she had a pass to take care of something for the model UN, and Veronica had blithely abandoned Kevin in order to grill Jughead. “I don’t even know if I want to ask her to the dance. And if I  _ did _ , don’t you think it should actually come from, I don’t know, me?”

Veronica muttered something that sounded like  _ “men” _ under her breath and savagely pinned a kidney to their foam board, labelling it with precise lettering. 

“Well, you’d better move fast, Romeo. You’re not the only one who thinks she’s a total smoke show, and someone else is going to ask her if you don’t get your skates on.”

The thought put his stomach in knots.

He spent the sixth and seventh avoiding both girls, and ate more junk food than he probably had at any other point in his life. He felt disgusting, and it didn’t actually help. 

On Monday, four days before Valentine’s Day, ignoring Veronica’s pointed and knowing glares and Betty’s slightly hurt glances, he sat at the back of the class and doodled distractedly in his notebook while he turned over his options. 

Sometimes timing is everything, sometimes one just needs a little shove in the right direction, and his shove came in the form of a knock on the door. 

He’d completely forgotten about the Heart-O-Grams, and he sat bolt upright in a sudden and alarming display of nerves. 

Veronica’s desk, naturally, was completely obscured by piles of blood-red roses within seconds. Cheryl had probably bought them out just so no one else could coopt her signature colour. Several of the girls received one or two stems and the class was full of whispered giggles as they compared notes. The bored-looking freshman tasked with handing out the flowers wandered up and down the rows of desks, checking names off a smudged, dog-eared list. 

In his peripheral vision, Betty slumped uncharacteristically in her chair, her head on her hand as she resolutely filled in her worksheet, ignoring the chattering around her. Her seat was in the front row, furthest from the door, the last one passed by the basket of roses, and it hurt him more than he realized to see her dejection before they even reached her. 

When the kid with the basket paused at her desk it took her a beat to notice, and when he checked her name against his list it seemed to take everything she had not to ask to see it for herself. 

He could see Veronica wiggling in her seat like a puppy that wasn’t quite housebroken, and silently clap her hands in glee when Betty accepted half a dozen pink roses wrapped in a silky white ribbon. Shocked as she looked, she still managed to thank the messenger with her signature polite smile. 

For the rest of the class, the teacher could have set his own hair on fire and Jughead wouldn’t have noticed, so absorbed he was in watching Betty. She sat with an absent smile on her lips, fingering the ribbon and glancing every few seconds at the flowers as if to make sure they were still there. 

Part of him wondered who she thought they were from, but the bigger part - the part that had made her smile every 14th of February since first grade - was just happy that she hadn’t, for once, been left out. 

Anyway, the flowers were really Veronica’s doing. 

  
  
  
  
  


But he wanted to make her smile like that again. He had her chocolate all ready - half-a-dozen bars this year, tied with a bow - but somehow it didn’t seem like enough anymore. 

He had to invite her to the damn dance. He wanted to twirl her around the dance floor while someone else took care of the refreshment table, he wanted to see her laugh like she did at Homecoming, because of him. 

And there was his answer, months after Veronica first cornered him: he loved Betty and he wanted her to love him back.

Decision made, all that was left was to actually do it. 

  
  
  
  


The best-laid plans, and all that. He’d figured that catching her in the Blue and Gold office would be his best bet - it was private, she was sure to be there, and he felt more comfortable there than in any other place in the school, except maybe the cafeteria.

Except, when he made his way there after classes expecting to find Betty working on the layout of the holiday edition, he actually found her pacing, thumbnail firmly between her teeth and a bouquet of pink roses in a vase, smack in the middle of his desk. 

“You make your Ts the same way you make your Js,” she said softly, not looking at him. “You didn’t  _ have _ to sign it.” Then, to his absolute shock, she did stop pacing and raised her chin in that stubborn way she did when she was being brave. “But I wish you had.”

“I kind of wish I had, too,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor and chewing his lip.”But Veronica was there, and Cheryl was making me nervous, and I wasn’t even sure if I should be sending the damn things - it’s not like I could pay for them - I just wanted you to-” Dear God could someone please make him stop talking?

“You wanted me to what?”

He was sweating, something he didn’t even do in gym class, his hands were shaking, his pulse thrummed in his ears and he had a million things he absolutely needed to tell her, including the fact that the flowers weren’t even his idea, but she was looking at him with those big eyes and her head cocked to the side, and - “-will you go to the dance with me?”

“What?” she said, eyes wide and surprised. His sentiments exactly.

“The dance, which I realize is this Friday and it’s tacky and insulting to wait until the last minute and I’m sorry, but this is my first time doing this and I would really like it if you would go to the dance. With me. Please?” He really should have written this down. But she was smiling, and blushing, and he realized that it might be her first time being asked to a dance, too. 

“I’d love to,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She was beaming by then, her hands clasped in front of her. “You don’t have to pick me up or anything. I’ll be getting ready here so you can just find me in the gym or whatever …”

Oh no. He was walking into the dance with her, no matter what. “I’ll meet you here. In the office. Home away from home, right?”

“Yeah.” She smiled at her feet and then back up at him. “Seven-thirty okay?”

“Sounds perfect.”

.

.

.

He followed her around like a puppy all night, first taking tickets at the door, then manning the snack table, then standing somewhat awkwardly off to the side while she danced with her friends, looking so happy and so unbelievably gorgeous that he was damn near giddy himself. 

Finally, a slow dance came on and the lights dimmed a bit more than the chaperones would probably like, and Betty looked around, searching for someone. 

Searching for him.

He would have felt weird dancing like the other couples were, with no space between them and their hands in questionable places, but the song was something classy and old-fashioned - Glenn Miller, his brain supplied - so it seemed natural to hold her hand, and rest his other hand low on her back. Closer than he ever thought he wanted to be to a girl, close enough that he could hear her breath quicken when he absently rubbed his thumb against the silk of her dress; close enough that, when they turned, her temple rested against his cheek; far enough away that he could just, out of the corner of his eye, see her smile. 

“You sent me flowers,” she murmured.

“Technically, that was Veronica,” he admitted. “I was a chicken.”

She laughed a little, a short exhale. “You put chocolate in my locker.”

“That was me.” All by himself, thank you. 

Then, quieter, not as sure of herself. “You like me.”

He pulled her just a little bit closer and nodded, the corner of his mouth so close to her hair that he couldn’t resist pressing his lips against the side of her head. “Yeah. I do.”

Such a simple statement, one that he’d been on the verge of making for longer than he could remember. She didn’t say anything else but she didn’t run away either. 

“Did I tell you how beautiful you look?”

This time,  _ she _ moved closer so he could feel her smile, her cheek against his neck. “You didn’t have to.”

“You deserve to hear it.” She deserved a lot more than that, but it was a start. “You look like a dream.”

The song ended but they didn’t move until Betty whispered, “I might kiss you.”

He said the first thing that popped into his head. “I might be bad at it,” and she laughed because she’s the one who made him watch that movie and she’s the one who promised never to tell anyone that he cried at the end. 

And then she kissed him, softly, a little shyly. A gentle kiss that not even the chaperones could object to, but it shook him to his core and he almost, almost felt sorry for Archie who never saw what was right in front of him. Her lip slipped between his, then, and Archie and the chaperones were forgotten because he could almost taste her. The lightest nip of her teeth and he let go of her hand and just held  _ her _ , as close as any of the octopus-like couples that had so confused him. 

He got it now. He got why someone would want to have another person in their space like that, why they danced wrapped up in each other. Because it was overwhelming in the most amazing way. It was just her - her taste, her perfume, her arms around his neck - and it was everything. 

  
  
  
  
  


Later, hours later with sore feet and a wrinkled collar, banished to Pop’s with his laptop and full access to Veronica’s tab, he scrolled through the pictures that Veronica had taken of them in the Blue and Gold office before the dance. She’d snapped them in at least twice as many awkward poses as the most embarrassing parents in the world would have done, reminded them not to drink any spiked punch and told Jughead severely to be a gentleman.

A text came through, a sleep-over selfie of Veronica, Cheryl and Betty, with Betty smushed in the middle, her lips still a little bee-stung and her eyes bright and happy. 

Another Valentine’s day, another smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Jandy, my dear friend, to cheer her up after yesterday's brou-ha-ha. We thought perhaps it might cheer up some other disgruntled buggies, too. 
> 
> I'm in a big band sort of mood, so they're dancing to Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. At first I was like, Jughead wouldn't know Glenn Miller, would he? And then I remembered that Jughead existed in the 1940s so there's no reason why that little tidbit shouldn't be hidden away in the depths of his impressive brain. 
> 
> The title, of course, is a song from Casablanca. 
> 
> 40s music for everyone!
> 
> (I did not ask Jandy to beta this because I was trying to cheer her up, not torture her. Being my beta is torture.)


End file.
